Apologise Hurb, I could have sworn you said it lost some paint.
I still lay clear on everything, it adds a visible layer of protection. My Baja Telecaster is blonde and has buttloads of clear on it, and I did the same with my Duo-Sonic body. In fact I've finished laying clear now and I'm just leaving it a month to cure before final buff and assembly.
They do but the grades don't got that high. I saw a pack I bought yesterday that was labelled 'fine', checked the back of a sheet and it was 400. I found some spare stuff from Halfords I'm gonna bring to doogfest. I think the grades were 800/1200/1500, something like that anyway.
You should defo do clear. YOu can use less paint that way, just make sure you get a nice even coat of colour, and then your done, just start doing layers of clear, then once they have hardened you can wetsand them down. USE BABY OIL for wetsanding.
This is what I did and it worked fine for me. Wait, I used mineral oil...and I went up to 2000 grit. I found with 1500 grit it wasn't quite a mirror shine. The 2000 grit made it all better- some slight swirl marks/tiny scratches can be seen in the sun but it was a noticeable improvement from 1500.
